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Traffic Lights Worldwide Set To Change (theregister.co.uk) 54
Re:What an asshole (Score:5, Informative)
by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday October 21, 2019 @03:02PM (#59331724)The law states you aren’t to enter an intersection when the light is yellow. If you are making a left turn when the light is yellow, you have enough time to stop and wait for the red. Just pay the fine and get on.
Not where I live it doesn’t.
It states that you’re not to enter the intersection when the light is red. The yellow is to notify the driver that the red light is coming, so that the driver can choose to proceed or can choose to stop, based on the driver’s judgement.
- Some years ago in the U.S. while driving a taxi I had an obese woman in the back seat. There was an officer who had the green traffic light control box open and under his control. He caused the traffic light to turn from green to amber, then instantly to red. I was doing the 30 mph limit, if I had applied the brakes that passenger would have been injured due to being propelled from the back seat to the front. (Seat belt laws in taxis have changed since then.). I had to pay the fine in court, Half off, no p
Re:What an asshole (Score:4, Interesting)
by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday October 21, 2019 @03:16PM (#59331804)If you had looked up the city’s own rules on yellow light duration then you might have been able to get out of that ticket. It has happened here with red-light cameras as both American Traffic Systems and Redflex have gotten caught violating the actual rules.
- I went to court where many people were there for hanging rosary beads while parked in beach lots. The guy in charge actually came out and said, “It’s ‘Lets make a Deal Day’. Plead guilty, pay half the price of the ticket, no points. We all just wanted to get out of there, most if not all just paid the half off deal. Like I said, just a money grab by the local township.
- by Ichijo ( 607641 )
Oregon is different:
Unlike some other states, Oregon law requires drivers to stop at a yellow light. A driver is permitted to drive through a yellow light only if the driver cannot safely come to a stop and proceeds cautiously.
In practice, this means the burden of proof is on the driver to prove they could not stop for the yellow.
Another stupid Oregon driving law is the one (ORS 811.440) that forces right turning drivers to cross over a lane of traffic rather than merge into the lane first and then make th
Re:What an asshole (Score:5, Insightful)
by SirAstral ( 1349985 ) on Monday October 21, 2019 @03:02PM (#59331726)This is bullshit and you know it.
There is no secret that camera ticketing systems have been designed to “generate” revenue by adjusting the times to ensure that even a non-infraction is likely to result in a false positive.
People like you saying “just pay the fine and get on” are the blight on society. Your attitude is “literally” what helps keep government corrupt!
You are no longer allowed to say shit about any form of corruption without being a fucking knob of a hypocrite!
- I keep running into the scenarios here in the US where just getting the feds / FBI to enforce mail fraud laws would have a massive net benefit to society. I doubt Redflex or even the local municipality’s qualified immunity trumps federal law, so the real thing to do is to prosecute the red light tickets as mail fraud.
Problem is getting half-committed while waiting for an opening that doesn’t come until the light is changing. If you don’t move you are now blocking the folks on your right making a left turn and may not be able to back up due to cars behind you. A solution would be never to half-commit and just wait 2-5x as long every time and piss off everyone behind you, but that sucks.
How about just “Don’t Block the Box” ? Who cares if people behind you get pissed off and honk. They’re the Real Assholes in this situation.
And what if there is no guarded left-hand turn signal? Then I have to either a) hope the traffic engineer in my municipality programmed single-way green lights in both directions, giving me a guarded opportunity to turn or b) never get to turn left, because there is sufficient volume of through traffic coming opposite me.
Traffic lights are expensive [citation needed], so I can understand why on lower volume roads guarded left signals aren’t used. In every place in the US I’ve lived its completely common
- by TWX ( 665546 )
Where I live, the law is that the driver is not to enter the intersection on-red. Clearing the intersection is not defined that way.
The problem, again, where I live, and perhaps in Oregon, is the definition of intersection. The stop-line for the crosswalk is not the start of the intersection, and neither is the crossing road’s legal right-of-way. The intersection is defined based on the curbs or painted lines on either side of the intersecting road. Depending on where the crosswalk is painted, the far
- Yeah I’m not sure I understand this article. Time to exit before red? What difference does that make, it’s legal to exit an intersection after the light turns red anyway. In fact it’s illegal to exit while yellow in some cases (oncoming car has right of way). What am I missing here it’s obviously something as it seems they are making the change?
So if you’re 5 feet (or 1 foot) from entering the intersection when the light turns yellow, you’re supposed to stop in that tiny distance? If that is actually the law anywhere (which I doubt), it’s impossible to comply with.
Maybe if they added a color to tell you that the light was about to change. No, wait.
Re:What an asshole (Score:5, Informative)
by mishehu ( 712452 ) on Monday October 21, 2019 @03:10PM (#59331768)The law states you aren’t to enter an intersection when the light is yellow. If you are making a left turn when the light is yellow, you have enough time to stop and wait for the red. Just pay the fine and get on.
Your statement is as flippant as it is wrong. Citation to the relevant Oregon law, please.
- The reality is that there is a finite interval in which the light is yellow and it is not safe to stop. Yes, many people do enter the intersection when it safe and reasonless to stop, but I have been in situations where for various reason it was a defensible decision to enter the intersection on yellow but was not able to clear it.
That said, I don’t think the timing the issue, but rather traffic cameras which prioritize revenue over safety. We removed all the traffic cameras around here because it
Re:What an asshole (Score:5, Informative)
by Rockoon ( 1252108 ) on Monday October 21, 2019 @03:11PM (#59331774)The law states you aren’t to enter an intersection when the light is yellow.
Nope.
The law states that you aren’t to enter an intersection that you cant clear before the light turns red, even if it was green when you entered.
In practice, of course, this is impossible to obey perfectly, because sometimes traffic just suddenly stops while you’re in the intersection. Also, at least here in California, I’ve seen traffic lights where, when turning left, even if you pull out into the intersection the instant that the light turns green, it is red before you fully clear the intersection. These lights are short because they don’t want to hold the light green for very long at intersections where there’s likely to be only a single car.
I
The law states you aren’t to enter an intersection when the light is yellow. If you are making a left turn when the light is yellow, you have enough time to stop and wait for the red. Just pay the fine and get on.
That makes no sense. In that case there is no point in having a yellow, since you would have to slam on the breaks as soon as the yellow starts to avoid a violation.
- Actually Oregon explicitly permits this.
Don’t forget, not all states are the same.- Almost forgot to mention, Oregon also allows right turns on red lights. (Or left turns if it’s a one way street going to the left.)
- by TWX ( 665546 )
Almost forgot to mention, Oregon also allows right turns on red lights. (Or left turns if it’s a one way street going to the left.)
Right turns on red are permitted nearly everywhere [wikipedia.org] in the United States, and that’s based on a Federal law that would restrict funding to states if they kept them illegal.
- by TWX ( 665546 )
I’m not going to check the vehicle code in 50 state. The two of the three states I’ve lived in: California and Massachusetts, say if the light is yellow you must stop if you can do so safely.[1][2]. It’s probably even easy to do 99% of the time if you aren’t speeding too. Just for a measure of balance, the third state I’ve lived in: Illinois, says you may enter on a yellow, it is just a warning that the light is about to change.[3] Ain’t States Rights just grand?
Even with the different wording, the laws in California, Massachusetts, and Illinois are effectively the same, there are conditions in which entering the intersection on a yellow is perfectly legal. No one is going to get ticketed in either California or Massachusetts for entering a late yellow, because the driver can argue in court that they did not predict that they could stop safely.
By your reading of the law, there is no such thing as a yellow light, it is a red light.
The truth it that the law says you are not to INTENTIONALLY enter the intersection after it turns yellow, but if after it turns yellow, you slow down at a safe speed (rather than slamming on the breaks and getting hit from behind) and find yourself in the intersection then you may legally turn.
He claims that is what happens, and that the fault was that the camera is set to ticker too early.
Given that the ticket occurred
The law states you aren’t to enter an intersection when the light is yellow.
This statement of OP’s is mostly correct with regards to Oregon law. Quoting ORS 8:11.260 (4) [oregonlaws.org] (bolding mine):
Steady circular yellow signal. A driver facing a steady circular yellow signal light is thereby warned that the related right of way is being terminated and that a red or flashing red light will be shown immediately. A driver facing the light shall stop at a clearly marked stop line, but if none, shall stop before entering the marked crosswalk on the near side of the intersection, or if there is no m
Vastly overstates the effects (Score:5, Informative)
by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday October 21, 2019 @03:00PM (#59331712)The headline and summary vastly overstates the actual effects of a voluntary standards-body’s new guideline.
The standards-body’s revisions almost undoubtedly aren’t legally-binding. Even if the are legally-binding, most of the time that sort of requirement is tied to a set revision of the standard, not tied to ongoing changes. Otherwise municipalities would have to scramble to make changes every time a guideline changed.
And realistically, I don’t expect the guidelines to be binding at all. Municipalities set their own rules for light timing, and have even been caught violating their own published rules for things like red-light cameras, where yellow lights have been shaved shorter and shorter in the name of revenue. So don’t count on this published guideline amounting to anything at all.
So don’t count on this published guideline amounting to anything at all.
There might be a small profit for the publisher…
The standards-body’s revisions almost undoubtedly aren’t legally-binding.
Given that the timing for yellow vary not only between country but even between states in the USA, the standard
- by TWX ( 665546 )
The standards-body’s revisions almost undoubtedly aren’t legally-binding.
Given that the timing for yellow vary not only between country but even between states in the USA, the standard
The timing varies from city to city, and even within cities, even on roads with similar traffic volumes, speed limits, and intersection physical dimensions.
- by jythie ( 914043 )Yeah, but you have to remember that Jarlstrom is a bit of a folk here now, so even if the guideline has no effect, his followers can take it as further proof that he is right while the bureaucracy and civil engineers who doubted him were wrong and corrupt.
Revenue-generation (Score:2, Insightful)
That’s what traffic cameras in the US are meant to do — make money.
Here where I live in Florida, a commercial 3rd-party runs the system and tickets you.
Broward and Dade both were caught setting ridiculously short yellows — to make money.
And while we’re at it, the current Broward government — go look up what color it is — has made it their stated goal to turn driving in Broward into a hellhole to push people into public transport — in a city not really friendly to public transport.
https://www.sun-sentin [sun-sentinel.com]
The Automobile the symbol of Freedom, is Americas governments biggest source of income, also one of leading cause to much of the incarnation in the United States.
Most of these traffic laws, which come under the guise of safety improvements, are actually just meant as income to the local community because no politician can win by saying they want to raise taxes for everyone, so a few don’t have to pay so many fines and dealing with traffic tickets.
- by TWX ( 665546 )
The Automobile the symbol of Freedom, is Americas governments biggest source of income, also one of leading cause to much of the incarnation in the United States.
I just looked up the numbers, and I don’t think that you’re right. Federal, State, and Municipal governments that I’m subjected to the whims of predominately make revenue from personal income taxes, payroll taxes, and corporate income taxes, with the state adding sales taxes and real property taxes to the mix, and the cities predominately depending on sales taxes.
As far as “incarnation”, since the advent of effective birth control, few babies are conceived in cars anymore, so the automobile is no longer th
- by SeaFox ( 739806 )
“Until you make it so painful that people want to come out of their cars, they’re not going to come out of their cars,” Anne Castro, chair of the Broward County Planning Council, said during a meeting last year. “We’re going to make them suffer first, and then we’re going to figure out ways to move them after that because they’re going to scream at us to help them move.”
Wow. What a great example of putting the cart before the horse.
- by pgmrdlm ( 1642279 ) on Monday October 21, 2019 @03:07PM (#59331750) JournalWhen I read this. Not to do with the time of a yellow light.
https://reason.com/2019/01/02/judge-confirms-that-oregon-engineer-has/ [reason.com]
JÃrlstrÃm got on the board’s bad side because he tried to challenge a traffic ticket given to his wife by a red light camera in Beaverton, Oregon, in 2013. He challenged the ticket by questioning the timing of the yellow lights at intersections where the cameras had been installed, using knowledge from his degree in electrical engineering and his experience working as an airplane camera mechanic in the Swedish Air Force. His research landed him in the media spotlightâ”in 2014, he presented his evidence on an episode of 60 Minutesâ”and earned him an invitation to present his findings at an annual meeting of the Institute of Transportation Engineers, a trade group.
Yes, this dealt with a yellow light. But it was specific to the red light camera’s where the timings had been shortened to get more money.
- Both cases are from Oregon? The one I cited and what is in the original article. Makes you wonder, now doesn’t it.
- by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Monday October 21, 2019 @03:09PM (#59331762) Journal
A slightly longer interval, he argued, would allow drivers making turns on a yellow light to exit intersections before the light turned red. Even a small timing increase would help — the automatically generated ticket in this case was issued 0.12 seconds after the light turned red.
Traffic light cameras work differently over here. Dutch traffic law does not exactly require you to be clear of the intersection when the light turns red; it requires you to safely stop in front of the stop line at a yellow light if possible (and carry on otherwise), but not cross that line on a red. The cameras watch you when crossing the line and make a picture (2 in fact) if you cross on a red. There’s no issues with drivers slowing down making a turn and still being in the intersection when the light turns red, with any duration of the yellow light, in other words that duration is a non-issue. The only “downside” of this scheme is that when the light turns red, the light for the other direction cannot turn green immediately; there’s a 1-2 second delay to allow stragglers to clear the intersection.
I’m not sure if the law and cameras work like this in many other countries, but to claim that “traffic lights worldwide” are set to change seems a bit of a stretch.
- by TWX ( 665546 )
I don’t know of any intersection where the light instantly turns green as the other light turns red. Every intersection that I know of has some duration when it’s red for all directions, simply to allow the intersection to clear before letting anyone proceed.
Yes, it’s smart to have a safety margin. It’s also smart to treat the system as if the safety margin is not there; otherwise the safety margin becomes less effective.
- In Germany, if someone is in the middle of an intersection he is privileged and needs to leave it first. It’s also forbidden to cross the stop line in front of the traffic lights on red and not behind them. So the cameras photograph you at the entrance. You are always wrong, if you enter the intersection at red light.
The word “global” in the article is probably taken from ITE’s website where “global” means US+Canada+Australia+New Zealand.
I assume that the timings already vary due to local considerations, such as average speed, width of roads, neighbourhood, etc.
I think the headline is slightly exaggerated.
- by jythie ( 914043 )While I know most people will not care, the piece gets a rather serious detail wrong about why he got in trouble with the board. It was not because he was ‘right’, or because he was calling himself an ‘engineer’, it was that after he failed to get an audience, he started including his engineering credentials in letters to various public workers who worked with state engineers. So he was trying to do a bit of a ‘lie by omission’ to try to sound authoritative and get people’s attention within the organizati
- by TWX ( 665546 )
Because it requires an advanced degree to operate a stopwatch…
A slightly longer interval, he argued, would allow drivers making turns on a yellow light to exit intersections before the light turned red.
I was under the impression that the law was that you can legally enter an intersection when the light is yellow, but the moment it turns a steady red, you must then stop. Vehicles IN the intersection after the light turns red legally have the right of way and are allowed to proceed. So as long as you enter the intersection before the red light is shown, regardless of if you are accelerating or slowing down, you may proceed.
So I get where adding some time to the yellow light might be a good idea, I don’t
- by b0bby ( 201198 )
I get where adding some time to the yellow light might be a good idea, I don’t see how this engineering argument changes the law or negates the woman’s ticket. IF she entered after the red light was displayed, the ticket was legit as the law is written.
I think the argument is that if you make the yellow too short, it’s not possible for someone approaching the intersection to stop before the red in time under certain circumstances.
- Or possible but dangerous. If you’re being tailgated, on a wet road, or happened to be
With a longer light time more people will run the light which will mean an increase in accidents.
Congrats. You’ve just made the body shops happy with all the work they’ll be getting and hospitals for all the money they’ll collect treating those injured in accidents.
- Studies repeatedly show that a longer yellow light is safer. Safer still would probably be to have a countdown clock like crosswalks have.
- They’ve done studies, and yellow lights at anyplace where the red light cameras are have been found to be shorted on their timing by a significant amount in around 70% of the lights they checked.
It’s almost as if someone is violating the law to get more traffic ticket money….
Yes, there are actually rules and guidelines on the length of those yellow lights.
Let’s take greed out of the equation: Collect the fines in cash and hold a bonfire. That way it’s still just as much a deterrent as now, but no government or contracted-out-third-party has any incentive to issue the fines.
As for 3rd parties, pay them like you [are supposed to] pay cops: By the hour or by the month, not by the ticket issued. Oh, and no quotas either, and that includes “unwritten/unofficial quotas” that some police departments supposedly employ.
Traffic lights that don’t change aren’t much good, are they?
Green to yellow, yellow to red, red to gr… dammit it’s stuck again. Time to call public works, again.
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